


never let your mark erase

by in_lighter_ink



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pre-series (sort of), Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_lighter_ink/pseuds/in_lighter_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logically, Lestrade never should have trusted the kid hanging around his crime scene. Six years after they met, he finds himself needing to remember why he had.</p><p>Spoilers for episode 2.03: "The Reichenbach Fall"</p>
            </blockquote>





	never let your mark erase

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the first round of [bigbang_mixup](http://bigbang-mixup.livejournal.com/), for a wonderful mix made by [rosepetal9](http://rosepetal9.livejournal.com/). You can download it from Sendspace [here](http://www.sendspace.com/file/uh6vjh).
> 
> [art_brutal](http://art-brutal.livejournal.com/) created some gorgeous artwork that you can find [right here](http://art-brutal.livejournal.com/5101.html).

"You're suspended, Lestrade. With pay, until the Holmes matter has been resolved."

Lestrade isn't surprised. He's anticipated it, really, and has spent the last two days photocopying every case file, every report, every photo, every note he'd made for five years: everything for every case Sherlock Holmes has ever been involved with. His own cases, Dimmock's, Gregson's. He's seen witch hunts -- sorry, internal investigations -- before, and certainly knows when he was the target of one.

"Hard not to notice that I'm the only one in here. Is it just me they're going after, or am I going to have company on the gallows?" He'd not throw his colleagues to the dogs -- they were in enough trouble without him adding on -- but he wants to know. 

His superintendent levels a glare at him. "You know I can't tell you that."

Lestrade grits his teeth and tries not to shout. He assumes that means their fates will depend largely on how the inquiry into his cases pans out. Probably they'll be confined to their desks, but at least they'd still be at work.

So it's just him, then. Sherlock's whipping boy at the Yard. 

"Right."

He takes a breath -- it's not his first suspension, but it's the first one he feels he doesn't deserve. At least he isn't alone in thinking that way: Gregson, he knows, has already started sticking her neck out for him. It's strangely touching.

"Yeah, fine." 

He doesn't bother to ask about the consequences. He already knows. If the Met needed to bow to political pressure, they'd decide they didn't like Lestrade's record-keeping, and he'd be fired. Well, forced to retire, anyway. There'd be a pension -- he was owed that much. If they couldn't find a reason to fire him, he was fairly certain that he'd never make it past DI. Not, he thought, that _that_ would be such a bad thing. Any higher, and he'd be stuck behind a desk, too tied up in bureaucratic nonsense to do his damned job. 

However it ended, his reputation was in tatters, so damned if he was going down without a fight. He looked the chief super square in the eye. "They're not going to find anything," he says, keeping his voice casual.

"We'll see about that." He holds the eye contact a moment more, then starts to shuffle some papers on his desk. "You're dismissed," he adds, as though it needed saying. He's not bothered to look up. "Internal Investigations will be in touch."

"I'll bet they will," Lestrade mutters.

"What was that?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing at all."

As he walks back across the floor to his office, all conversation stops. The looks of mingled pity and disdain are hard to ignore, but he keeps his head high, meeting every eye. Most look away. 

There's a weedy-looking young man sitting at his desk -- some tech guy who'd nervously introduced himself even while he'd made himself comfortable, displacing Lestrade from his chair, his fingers confident on Lestrade's keyboard as soon as he'd sat down. Lestrade doesn't acknowledge him, just grabs his coat. He'd already taken the box of case files (along with his private stash of decent coffee and the bottle of Macallan that lived in his bottom desk drawer) home.

He does, however, stop by Donovan's desk on his way out. Things between them were tense, even though he doesn't blame her. Truthfully, he admires her for speaking her mind, despite what it might cost him. Her stubbornness made her a good partner, and it'll make her a hell of a DI.

"Hold down the fort, yeah, Sally?"

There's a hint of guilt in her eyes as she replies; Lestrade is weirdly proud that she keeps it out of her voice. "Will do, sir. You're suspended?"

"Pending investigation," he confirms.

"I'm sorry." It's genuine.

He forestalls any other apology she might make with an upraised hand. "Don't ever apologize for sticking to your guns. Worst they can do is sack me, and then I can open that pub I've been talking about for years." He's pretty sure he'd kept most of the bitterness out of his voice, but she still gives him a look.

She doesn't remark on it, though, just nods.

His nod back is more confident than he feels. "See you around," he says, then turns on his heel.

He can hear the whispers start up again as the lift doors shut in his face, and tries to ignore them. 

As he leaves Scotland Yard and looks into the sunset, he pretends he doesn't think it's the last time he'll set foot in the building as a copper.

**

He nearly takes the wrong tube line home. Not that the flat he'd taken after he and Julia decided there was nothing of their marriage left to save feels like home. Of course, the house where she'd fucked what's-his-name doesn't feel so homely anymore, either. 

Coat in closet, shoes on floor, keys in bowl. The movements feel mechanical, rehearsed. Work clothes off, kettle on.

As usual, the flat's quiet, unnervingly so. Julia never liked the quiet, so he'd gotten used to music playing while she marked essays, having the telly on low to fall asleep, that sort of thing. He's been avoiding his television ever since That Day -- Ian Hislop's cutting satire was considerably less funny when one was the target of it. 

He flicks through his CD collection. One day he's going to upgrade to an iPod or whatever, or so he keeps telling himself. He stops on _Peter Grimes_ \-- probably it's Julia's, she was more of an opera fan than he'd ever been.

By the time the kettle clicks off, Lestrade is humming along. The humming stops when Lestrade finally comes to face the file boxes lurking by the sofa, one case file already spread out on the coffee table.

In those boxes, he hopes, is Sherlock's validation and his own.

His presence in Lestrade's life feels so much bigger than would fit in three file boxes. His name doesn't actually appear in any of the official reports, just Lestrade's personal notes, but his voice manages to echo in Lestrade's ears even as everything else around him crumbles apart.

It's irritating, and probably exactly as Sherlock would have wanted.

Lestrade can't quite believe he'd had helped to carry Sherlock's coffin only days before, staring at the back of John Watson's head, shoulder-to-shoulder with Mycroft Holmes.

There had be a crowd outside the church: protesters on one side, shouting their betrayal, calling Sherlock a monster and worse, and supporters with their 'I believe in Sherlock Holmes' badges on the other. Lestrade had walked through the center of it, trying his best to ignore both sides. At the cemetery, Molly Hooper had squeezed his hand as the coffin was lowered, had given him a gently reassuring smile. Lestrade might have thought it would have been the other way around, that she'd be nearer tears than he'd been. 

John hadn't met anyone's eyes during any of it. 

He hadn't returned any of Lestrade's phone calls, either. Lestrade supposes he can't blame him for it. He'd be angry, too. Is angry.

Sherlock had a way of unknowingly putting people together in such a way that they shattered when he was gone. 

Lestrade didn't know if that made him good or evil.

He wasn't sure it mattered, anyway.

Fuck it if he feels like thinking too hard about this all tonight. Instead of sitting and poring over the file on the table, looking for his own mistakes, he rummages through the boxes, looking for one specific case. 

The folder labelled "Persano, 2005."

Might as well start at the beginning.

Lestrade downs the rest of his tea, cold by then, rinses out the mug, refills it with scotch, then takes it and the folder out on the fire escape.

If he shoves his packet of cigarettes into the pocket of his hoodie, then, who was there to disapprove? 

The fire escape is the one thing about this new flat that he likes better than the one where he and Julia had lived together. The building is out of the way enough that the traffic sounds were relatively minimal, just loud enough to remind him that he wasn't completely alone in the city. The floodlight illuminating the alley below is bright enough for him to read by, and, though his joints complain about sitting on cold metal steps for too long, the fresh air (or as fresh as London air got, anyway) does him good. 

And he can smoke out here.

He takes a cigarette from the crumpled packet (it's only his third of the day -- even if the quitting hadn't stuck, he's determined to at least keep the habit under control this time) and lights it.

The first drag of a cigarette is always the best. The first hit of smoke, the sweet sharp sear in the back of his throat, down to his lungs, the first wave of numbing calm as the first rush of nicotine sweeps through his system. He tilts his head up, exhales the smoke into the twilight, and with it some of the pain from the worst of the day's blows. He chases the smoke with a sip of the whiskey, soothing the sear with an entirely different sort of burn. The cigarette smoke lets him blow away the tension, the whiskey replaces it with a smooth slow warmth. 

He swirls the liquid around the mug, caught by the play of light on the shadowed surface, cigarette held between two fingers, case file in his other hand. 

All right.

He feels almost human again.

Another sip, another drag, and he thinks he can revisit the case with some degree of objectivity. 

Izzy Persano, aged 26, found in her flat by a neighbor. 

Details flood back as Lestrade reads on: the smell of kimchi wafting out of Persano's downstairs neighbor's flat, that boy band -- McPlanes, McFly, whatever -- blaring out of the flat across the hall. He'd had a hard time getting the neighbor who'd found her to talk to them. He'd been some kind of police-hating conspiracy nutter who'd cursed Donovan out and had been cursed out in return.

Dennis Brown, that was the name. He'd looked good for the murder for a hot minute, until Donovan had noticed that the door to the next flat was open, and that the flat's occupant, a Jamie Duggan, was missing.

Neither Brown nor Duggan had done it, but of course Lestrade and his team hadn't known that at the time. 

Back on the fire escape, Lestrade takes another drag, then scratches the bridge of his nose with the hand that held the cigarette. The old habit pulls him the rest of the way back to another evening.

****

While Forensics did their thing, Lestrade had peeled off the protective blue jumpsuit and ducked out, under the crime scene tape, for a fag. 

"Careful, or you'll burn your nose that way," a voice with carefully enunciated consonants, posh vowels, and no emotion whatsoever had said. "Mind if I bum one?"

The kid didn't match his voice: _that_ was all honey and education, all the rest was ragged 'round the edges. If he wasn't been sleeping rough, wherever he called home was close enough. Prominent cheekbones, too-bright eyes. Lestrade suspected there'd be track marks under his sleeves. Thin. Dangerously so, if Lestrade was any judge.

"Yeah, sure." Lestrade wasn't sure what made him say it. Some instinct, some look in the kid's eyes.

He took the fag with long, thin fingers, eyes sweeping over Lestrade. Was he trying to suppress a tremor in that hand?

There was something… off about him. Something missing, maybe. Something alien about the features, but, maybe it was just a play of the light from the panda cars, flashing blue and casting weird shadows.

"You're wondering why I'm not asking about the crime."

He narrowed his eyes. Now that he'd said it, Lestrade realized the kid was right -- most people would be wondering about the victim, curious about the crime, hungry for sensationalized gore.

"I'm not 'most people,' Detective Inspector." Again he seemed to read Lestrade's mind, his words dripping with disdain.

But, then, Lestrade had met his sad share of arrogant junkies, the drugs convincing them that they were special. He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, 'course you're not."

That earned him a glare. "You think it was the neighbor. It wasn't."

"Oh no?" He pulled the notebook from his jacket pocket. "Maybe you'd like to give me your name and address, and tell me how exactly you were involved with the victim."

"Of course I'm not _involved_ ," he spat, rolling his eyes. "I've _observed_. Something the police seem incapable of doing."

Again with the clipped consonants. "All right," Lestrade drawled, "what is it you've 'observed,' then?" He did his best to keep the unprofessional sarcasm out of his voice, but something about the haughtiness in the kid's tone brought out the worst in him. That sort of bystander -- the kind that thought the police were incompetent -- always had done.

Apparently the kid heard it anyway. He certainly reacted to it, anyway. His shoulders stiffened, and his glare turned suddenly blisteringly cold. It was unsettlingly calculating, and completely sober. 

"It isn't the smoking your wife has a problem with. Well," he amended, cocking his head to one side, "not _just_ the smoking."

"You may want to consider pissing off out of my personal life, sunshine." Lestrade kept his tone level, but didn't bother to hide the steel in it.

"Defensive. I'm right, then. I usually am. So: unhappy in your marriage, unhappy in your job. Perhaps the smoking is to forget how unhappy you really are?"

Lestrade opened his mouth, but the kid started up again before he could get a word out.

"No, shut up. It's irrelevant. Your wife doesn't _like_ your cigarette habit, but she likes being valued below your career even less." He took a drag, exhaled. "Ah, better." He looked critically at the cigarette between his (shaking) fingers. "Mostly. You _could_ stand to buy a less inferior brand with the money you're not spending on suits."

"Right, mate, how d'you reckon --"

"Ahh, you're annoyed now. Your accent's gotten thicker. Somerset, is it? Couldn't matter less. 'How do I know all of that?'" he mocked, tilting his head back and forth every other syllable. "Obvious. You rub your wedding band with your left thumb -- you're doing it right now -- means you're thinking about the state of your marriage. You frown while you do it, so you're worried. Two minutes ago, you were also fiddling with the lighter in your other hand, very telling. You've connected the worry with your smoking. Astute of you, but wrong. It's in the tie."

"My tie." 

"Mmm. Your suit, as I said, is cheap. As is your shirt. You bought them yourself. Your tie is not -- a gift, then. The knot's loose from where you've been pulling at it, but you've not taken it off. Wearing something you hate: that's obligation. You'd feel guilty if you were to take it off, even though she's not here to see you. Why is her problem with you and your job, then? That's easy, tediously so. Your shoes."

"My _shoes_?"

"Yes. Bought about a month ago, but already well-worn. You do much of your legwork yourself -- a lesser DI might delegate all of that to his sergeant, but not you. Maybe you don't trust yours, but, no. Your body language as you spoke to her earlier this evening says otherwise." 

Lestrade clenched his jaw.

"Or, to state the blisteringly obvious, your shift would have ended, what? Five minutes after this murder was called in? You might have easily passed it off, but here you are. You think it's your _smoking_ your wife objects to?" He took a breath. "And I am most definitely _not_ your mate."

"But how --"

"Oh, right. How did I know that you're unhappy at work, too? Even you should know that, Inspector. You've stood with your back to the crime scene the whole time you've been out here." He paused, a smug smile on his face. "I repeat. I _am not_ 'most people.'" 

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it," Lestrade muttered. 

If the kid heard, he ignored it, and kept a steady gaze on Lestrade. 

"All right," Lestrade said slowly, flipping to a clean page in his notebook. "What've you 'observed' about the case, then? Starting with your name. Address'd be nice, too." He tried to keep his tone light, to make it sound like he was just humoring the kid. He wasn't going to kid himself that either of them actually believed it; the pause had been a little too long, and he knew he'd not hid the surprise on his face after having his personal life dissected on the pavement in front of him.

"Sherlock Holmes. 4c, Montague House. Give me your notebook, I'll write down the address."

"No way in hell I'm stupid enough to give you access to my notes. I'm perfectly capable of writing down an address. I'll spell it correctly and everything." Lestrade was surprised despite the transparent ploy -- he'd expected to have to fight for the kid's personal information. 

The street Holmes gave him put him in a dodgier bit of West Ealing. So what was he doing all the way in Shoreditch?

"Your victim was in her early- to mid-twenties. She was a journalist and she was strangled. The murderer used his bare hands. I'd know more if I could see the crime scene."

Lestrade did his best not to react to the -- correct, worryingly correct -- information Holmes had just rattled off. Instead, he focussed on memorizing Holmes's face and wondering if he could outrun him. 

The first part of what Holmes had said put him on the suspect list. The second, though… It hadn't a request, but a statement, imperious, as though he expected that it would be nothing for Lestrade just to open it up to him.

"Oh, yeah, of course. We'll let you right in, no problem. Expect you'd like to talk to all our witnesses, too, would you?"

"That would be helpful, yes."

The tone was guileless, the look in the eyes less so. Lestrade's instinct was to snipe right back, to lower the conversation to an exchange of sarcastic barbs, but he kept his tone level. He couldn't help the derisive snort, though.

"Yeah, okay. Not a chance in hell, sunshine."

The kid glowered at him. "It's Sherlock. Photographs, then."

"No."

"I need data!" Holmes sounded suddenly desperate. "Don't you understand? I need _information_. I can't work without it."

The abrupt desperation and the edge in the kid's voice convinced Lestrade that the kid was high. Cocaine, maybe speed.

Thing was, he didn't sound like a long-term user.

"Don't we all. Look, kid, the Met isn't exactly in the habit of sharing its evidence with anyone off the street. You know something about criminology, I'll give you that. So do I. I know there are killers out there who get their jollies making sure they're involved in the investigation."

Lestrade saw the kid start to open his mouth, to protest, Lestrade had no doubt. He talked over whatever Holmes was about to say. "Until I prove otherwise, you're on the suspect list, not that it matters."

"How dull. I have an alibi."

"Bully for you."

"British Museum. All afternoon."

"And we'll be checking that. There's still no way in hell you'll ever see evidence. Even if you _weren't_ high right now. So, what, you saw the crime scene because you were in the building visiting your dealer?"

Holmes narrowed his eyes, a dangerous angry light glinting weirdly against the blue and red of the panda cars' light. He took a long drag of his cigarette. "As if I would purchase anything from this area of town. Not likely."

"Oh, so you have some respect for your brain, huh? Give you a top tip: try not injecting that crap in the first place."

"Your concern is touching, Inspector, but misplaced. I know precisely what I'm doing."

"Heard that one before."

"Fine."

If Holmes was about to say more, he did not get the chance. He snapped his jaw shut and looked at something over Lestrade's shoulder. Lestrade very nearly turned his head, but he wasn't so gullible as to fall for that kind of ruse. If it had been a ruse.

"Sir!" came Donovan's voice. Lestrade turned then, and beckoned her over with a quick jerk of his head. When she was a few steps away, he crossed the remaining distance, knowing that the discussion they were about to have wasn't going to be for Holmes's ears. 

"Who's that guy?" she asked in an undertone.

"Witness," he answered, pitching his voice to match.

Before he could say anything further, though, Holmes called after them. 

"A cigarette lighter. Am I right? Assuming they're not completely oblivious, your Forensics team will have found a cigarette lighter somewhere near the body. It's not the victim's."

Donovan's head whirled around. "How could you possibly know that?"

"So I am right. Not surprising. You've got a serial killer on your hands."

Lestrade shook his head. "How do you figure that? Loads of people have cigarette lighters." He caught himself before he said any more, and decided not to bother wondering at himself for speaking to Holmes almost like a colleague. It was a slip, and not one that Lestrade thought he'd ever have been likely to make.

Holmes fixed him with another withering look, one that compared Lestrade to a particularly idiotic child. "Loads of people have cigarette lighters that belong to them. Very few have lighters that are gifts from serial killers. Wake up, Inspector."

"Answer the question. How do you know that?"

Holmes fixed his stare on Donovan, answering a cold tone with a colder look.

"Yeah, all right. Enough." He turned to Donovan. "He probably got a look at the scene before we got here -- probably has some connection to the building."

The smile Holmes turned on Donovan was smug. "Wrong. This is the third in a series of murders. Check your records: Allison Carroll, reporter at The Sun, died five weeks ago. Strangled. Nicola Jones, junior correspondent at Sky News, died two weeks ago. Strangled. And now Izzy Persano. Blogger. Strangled. Seeing the pattern yet? All young, all journalists of some kind. More importantly, all reported on local school events two weeks before their deaths. All were found with a cigarette lighter somewhere near their bodies. Three murders, three lighters. And the time between murders is getting shorter."

He paused a moment, letting his last sentence sink in. "The lighter you found has a worm engraved on it, doesn't it? No, don't answer that. I know it does." 

"And you haven't arrested this guy yet because…? Sir." The 'sir' was an afterthought, Lestrade could hear. It was one of the many things he liked about Donovan -- she wasn't afraid to speak her mind -- especially when it was to disagree with him. (And she was actually better at toeing the line between that and insubordination than he'd ever been.)

Lestrade shrugged. "No probable cause. Besides, that all sounds ridiculous. Probably making it up," he answered, a lift to his eyebrow that meant he wasn't going to argue the point. 

"We should at least bring him in for questioning."

Lestrade looked at her, weighing his options. He didn't really think he'd be able to get anything out of Holmes at the Yard -- it was hard enough getting the information he actually wanted out here in the street. He didn't think a trip to the station would help. But that didn't mean he didn't want to keep an eye on Holmes regardless. 

The movement was slight, quick, just a flicker in the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look, the boy was gone, melted away into the shadows.

"Fuck. Now where's he gone off to?"

"We should track him down, sir. No one could know those details unless they were involved." The 'as you bloody well should know' went unsaid, but Lestrade heard it anyway. "And there was something about that guy," she rubbed at her arms, as if warding off a lingering chill from a nightmare. "Something creepy."

Lestrade hummed in reply, noncommittal. There _was_ something about the kid, but Lestrade wasn't sure he'd've called it creepy, exactly. "Yeah, well. I got an address: first thing in the morning, we'll check it out."

He followed her back into the building. Break over.

**

The strange encounter with the Holmes kid echoed in his head all the way home. He shook his head as he toed off his shoes, trying to clear the conversation out. He'd promised Julia he'd be better about bringing work home. 

"Sorry I'm late, Jules," he called as he tossed his keys in the bowl next to the phone. 

"Detective Inspector Lestrade."

"Fuck!" he cursed, surreptitiously looking around for something to use as a weapon. "Who the hell are you, and how the fuck did you get in here?"

His 'guest' cocked his head disapprovingly and raised an eyebrow. "Really, Inspector. I expected better. Such language."

Lestrade glowered. "You've broken in to my flat and you're going to lecture me about my damned language?" He shook his head in disbelief. "I'll give you another go. Who are you, and what are you doing here? And where's --"

The intruder, his three-piece suit distinctly out of place in Lestrade's flat, tsked at him, tilted his head in admonishment. "She has a parent-teacher evening. It was rescheduled, if you'll recall."

Oh. Right. "And how the hell would you know that?"

"When you did not?" He let out a mirthless sound that wasn't quite long enough to be considered a chuckle. "It matters very little. But I did not come here to argue, nor to lecture you." A slight pause, during which Lestrade felt as though he was being appraised. "You have, I believe, recently made the acquaintance of a man called Sherlock Holmes."

Lestrade gave a start, though he repressed it as best he could. "What's that to you?"

The smile he got in answer was the kind of smile a spider would give a fly. "Consider me an interested party. Interested enough to note that you were quick enough to consider him an asset --" 

Before he could finish what was obviously a carefully prepared speech, Lestrade interrupted. "Look. You obviously know I've met him, so probably you know that I've only met him once. It's not like I'm planning to move in with him. Or even work with him again. Shouldn't do -- or didn't you know that he's a junkie?"

The man grimaced, the expression so brief that Lestrade nearly missed it before the man's face settled again into a smooth mask. "I am aware of that particular little weakness, yes. And thus it is that I felt I should ensure that you be prepared, should you choose to allow his presence further into your investigation."

Lestrade narrowed his eyes. "You know him."

"I would not be here if I--"

"No," Lestrade cut him off again. "You don't just know _of_ him. You _know him_. Personally. How?" he demanded.

And then the answer occurred, spurred by something in the man's voice, and something in his eyes.

 _Family_.

"His brother, yes. Mycroft Holmes," he said mildly, putting out a hand for Lestrade to shake. When Lestrade didn't, Holmes nodded, a clear _as you wish_ , and returned his hand to his pocket. "Somewhat, ah, estranged, enough so that I would prefer any concern of mine go unremarked. Perhaps I might convince you to..." he trailed off.

"What?" he retorted, sharply. He had a feeling about where this was going.

"I do prefer it when my information comes from a variety of resources, especially where my brother is concerned."

Lestrade nodded slowly, picking apart the doublespeak. Must work for the government. "First you come here to warn me off him, now you want me to spy on him for you."

"So crass a word. Not spy, Detective Inspector. Think of it as an ongoing inquiry." 

"Use all the posh words you want. Why?"

"I worry about him."

"You worry. Christ."

"I do, yes."

"You _want_ me to work with him. So why --"

"Why wish to assure myself of the level of your willingness to involve yourself in his life?" Holmes finished for him, eyebrows upraised. "Can't imagine."

Lestrade didn't have any response to that.

Holmes made a face, as though their entire conversation was emitting an unpleasant smell. "He has always shown quite a talent for obtaining information he should not have. Why not put it toward the common good?"

"'Obtaining information he should not have.' Can't see where he gets it from. Yeah, right. That's all very well, but. I sense he wouldn't be happy with me calling him an informant --"

"Call him what you wish."

"Kind of you to say. He's not interested in being an informant, I can't have him be anything else while he's on the drugs. Bit of a dilemma, isn't it?" 

"The cocaine is a most unpleasant habit, but one brought about by under-stimulation. Keep him busy, and he will stay away from it, I assure you." 

"You expect me to go on _your_ word that he'd stay clean? After you've broken into my flat at midnight?"

Holmes narrowed his eyes in a glare, apparently designed to make Lestrade feel like an unruly ten year old. When Lestrade stared straight back, he gave a small sigh and pulled a small, brown leather bound notebook from an inner jacket pocket. "Three citations for insubordination, another for unruly conduct. Tut, tut, Inspector."

"I don't want to know how you got that file, but you're not going to scare me with anything that's in it. Whatever trouble I've been in, it hasn't been from ratting on anyone else." 

"Perhaps not, Inspector, but it _has_ been from going outside the strictest interpretations of police regulations. All I ask is that you include Sherlock in your 'rule-bending.' It would, I assure you, be a benefit to you both, and I would rest rather easier knowing my brother to be in capable hands."

"Sherlock gets himself clean, he can deal with me on his own. I'm not a fucking nursemaid, and I'm sure as hell not your errand boy." 

"There would be a modest remuneration."

Lestrade did not punch him, though he had to concentrate to keep his hand from clenching into a fist. "Pretty sure I could nick you for offering me a bribe." 

Holmes made no answer.

"Right. I'm going to assume this is just some kind of fucked up way that you Holmeses show affection," he said, his tone deceptively casual. All the while as he spoke, he stepped closer and closer into the other's personal space, so that by the end of the sentence, he was standing nose to nose with him. "But if you ever come here again thinking that I can be bought, then God help you."

There was a long silence as they stared into each other's eyes, each getting the measure of the other, making sure that the message had been understood. And then Lestrade broke the contact, spinning on a heel and walking away. "Now get out of my flat."

"You _will_ find a way to work with him."

Lestrade whirled back around, ready to shout, but Holmes put up a restraining hand.

"No, that was not an order, merely fact. You've already decided. You've seen what he can offer you -- professionally and personally."

Again, Lestrade opened his mouth to protest, and again his words were forestalled.

"Your gait has changed. Your tread was distinctly lighter on your walk home this evening than it has been for several days. Surely this isn't a response to the maintenance on the Jubilee line?"

Lestrade felt his skin crawl at the thought of being observed so closely. "How --"

"Come now. You cannot believe the CCTV cameras are there simply for show."

"The Home Office doesn't have anything better to do than spy on me?"

That earned Lestrade the slightest quirk of a smile, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. "He will use you, Inspector Lestrade. You will be a means to an end for him, and very little more. Whatever rapport you and he reach, it will not be without..." a pause, as Holmes seemed to search for the right word, "without complications. For all that he may be an asset to your career, to entangle your interests with that of my brother's is to put yourself in a precarious balance. His involvement may well add to that file of yours. Are you prepared for that, I wonder?"

"Everything has its consequences, Mr. Holmes."

There was another long, silent, appraising moment. Holmes's eyes bored into him, but Lestrade refused to look away, refused to concede. Eventually, it was Holmes who broke the eye contact, nodding slightly as he did so. Lestrade had the distinct impression that not many could withstand that stare. 

"So it does." 

It was a simple enough response, but deceptively so. It felt more like an answer to a question that had underwritten their entire conversation.

"Very well, then, Inspector. Thank you for your hospitality," a raised eyebrow leant the expression some measure of self-aware humor, which Lestrade grudgingly appreciated. "I shall see myself out." Holmes made an ironic little bow, a token courtesy that Lestrade repaid with a nod. 

Holmes brushed past Lestrade, collected an umbrella from where it sat propped against the door, then paused, one hand on the doorknob. "Good luck, Detective Inspector. You will need it."

He shut the door softly behind him, leaving Lestrade standing dumbfounded in his wake. 

"The hell?" he muttered. 

He went to the door and locked it, double-checking the bolt. Resting his head against the jamb, he took a deep breath, then another. 

He needed a drink.

By the third swallow of whiskey, he felt a little more in control of his life. After the fifth, he decided that it was out of his hands for the moment and what he needed was a diversion. He opened the refrigerator.

He'd completely thrown himself into cooking, so the click of the bolt sliding open sent a surge of adrenaline thrilling through him. Willing his heart to slow and trying to control his breathing, he popped his head around the corner. The last thing he wanted was a second unexpected visitor. He wouldn't put it past the elder Holmes brother -- either Holmes, come to think of it -- to decide his flat was some kind of public way-station. He relaxed when he saw that it was who it was supposed to be.

"Heya, Jules. How was parents' evening?"

She smiled at him. "You remembered."

He took the credit for that -- he wasn't about to tell her about his guest from earlier. "Mm. Even made dinner."

"Look at you." Her keys joined his in the bowl, and she joined him in the kitchen, kissing him -- a quick peck on the lips -- before she hopped up to sit on the counter, letting her shoes drop off. "Smells nice in here. How was work?"

He thought for a moment, wondering how -- and if -- to describe Sherlock Holmes. "Got called to a late case."

"And you're actually here?"

"Yep." He chose not to tell her that it was mostly because he'd already reached the month's allotted overtime. "Bit weird, though."

"The murder?"

"Not that, exactly -- interviewed a, well, not a witness precisely, but... One of the hangers-on at the scene."

She grimaced -- she'd never understood why people would want to lurk about at a crime scene. Lestrade loved her for it.

He handed her a plate and filled it for her before grabbing one for himself. "There's that bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge if you want?" 

"Greg Lestrade. Aren't you fancy tonight. What have you done?" She said it jokingly, but Lestrade could feel the tips of his ears grow hot. 

He hadn't even 'done' anything.

He laughed it off. "Yeah, yeah. Wine or not?"

"You know the answer to that. _Especially_ after dealing with parents all evening."

Lestrade chuckled, and pulled two glasses down from the cupboard. 

"But I don't want to talk about my gaggle of parents. Tell me about this witness of yours. Hanging around at a crime scene? Really?"

"Yeah, I know. He wasn't the usual sort, though. _Knew_ things."

"Suspect?"

"No, no. I thought so, but no. It's hard to explain -- he thinks he's found a serial killer just from something we found at the crime scene."

Her eyebrows shot up and her fork paused for a moment, halfway to her mouth. "A serial killer."

He shook his head, trying to reassure her. "He's probably just a crazy paranoid kid. Something about cigarette lighters and worms."

She cocked her head. "Are you sure he couldn't have…?"

"He said he's got an alibi. I mean, of course we'll check it, but the flatmate didn't recognize his description. Sounds like he's got nothing to it with it."

"Huh. So why would he think there's any kind of pattern? And who follows that kind of thing anyway?"

Lestrade shrugged. "We'll run it down tomorrow."

She made a non-committal noise. "Sounds like someone's been watching too much _Inspector Morse_."

He chuckled. "Yeah. He was something else."

They didn't talk about his case any more that evening, but it hung in the air between them, or at least that's how it felt to Lestrade. All the things he hadn't said gnawed at his stomach, and he wondered if he should come clean and tell her the rest of it. 

Because Holmes -- both Holmeses -- had been too right about him, and it meant Lestrade couldn't dismiss what Sherlock had said about the case.

As he lay in bed that night, listening to Julia's soft snores and watching the light from the television flicker on the ceiling, he couldn't help but remember the calculating look in Holmes the younger's eyes, the frightening intelligence under the layer of drug haze. 

It was as if Holmes had planned to reel him in. 

He'd dismissed the kid a bit with Julia, something didn't feel right. He'd met a few crime scene hangers-on in his time, but none of them had been interested in getting anyone to actually listen to him. They'd been more interested in hearing their own voices. 

And he'd certainly never met any whose older brothers broke in to his flat and tried to bribe him to actually work with them.

**

"I've been tracking down Jamie Duggan, Izzy Persano's neighbor. He's got a prior arrest: an assault charge that didn't stick. An ASBO, too. He looks good for it."

"Don't lurk outside the lift, Donovan, please."

She rolled her eyes at him, and he pretended not to see.

"So I think we should bring him in for an interview."

Lestrade poured himself a mug of the Yard's finest bad coffee, set it on his desk while he hung up his coat. Only then did he sit down and take a look at the case file waiting for him on his desk. He flipped to his notes about Duggan-- most of the people he'd talked to the night before had said he was a decent enough lad, some trouble when he was a kid, but getting himself together. Quiet, maybe a bit weird. Except when he was drunk, which seemed to be every other night of the week. Drunk, he had a temper. There had been a mostly-empty fifth of cheap vodka on Persano's kitchen counter. It was far, far too easy to imagine an argument gone bad.

Except.

The lighter.

Still, though, Donovan had a point. "Yeah. If you'd've let me sit down, that's exactly what I would have suggested. Get Woodson and Ling, track him down, bring him in."

She nodded, crisp and official. "If I can ask, sir. You're going to be...?"

"Running Holmes's alibi and checking out the lighter Forensics found."

"You can't be serious about following that Holmes guy's information."

"Seriously. Are we actually going to spend today tracking down leads that probably won't go anywhere? Leads from some guy you met on the street?"

"You've been a copper long enough to know that sometimes we spend the day on leads that don't go anywhere when we've come up with them ourselves. Besides, I didn't say 'we.' You're going after Duggan. There's something about this that's bugging me, and I think what Holmes said is worth looking into. And it's more than anything we've got ourselves -- I agree, Duggan looks good, but it's all circumstantial so far. Find me something that isn't, and I'm with you. Come on, Donovan. You know we have to look at everything." 

She nodded and walked out. Something in the look in her eyes implied that she was glad he'd not asked her to do it. That was fine -- he'd prefer it to be his own arse on the line rather than one of his team. Especially for something that had been his idea in the first place.

He started by running a background check on Sherlock Holmes. Nothing. No arrests, no nothing.

But, then, that didn't really mean anything, if Holmes's "concerned" older brother was capable of what Lestrade guessed he was. Lestrade would be very surprised indeed if a guy who could manipulate the city's CCTV couldn't also find a way into the Yard's computer system.

Lestrade picked up the phone.

It didn't take long to find an attendant at the British Museum who remembered Holmes. The one Lestrade spoke to knew the kid by name -- Lestrade had only to give her a description, and she immediately placed him, and confirmed that Holmes had been there the entire afternoon. He couldn't have slipped out, couldn't have left without someone noticing: all the staff knew him. 

Most, she said, barely tolerated him, but that was another story.

He spoke to the woman for another few minutes, wanting some background on Holmes from a third party. When he hung up, he didn't have a whole lot more information than when he'd started. Holmes was bright, exceptionally bright, and completely ignorant of social convention.

But he couldn't have killed Izzy Persano.

Lestrade wasn't sure if that was a relief or not.

Didn't mean he was satisfied, though: a cocaine addict who looked like he hadn't seen a real bed or a full meal in years, doing what had to be reasonably complicated research -- for fun, it sounded -- at the British Museum, who spoke with a posh accent and had a truly frightening government flunky for a brother. 

None of it explained how Holmes could know anything about these murders without having committed them himself.

Like most other second days on a case, Lestrade spent the rest of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon sitting behind his desk making phone calls. Leaving messages on answerphones, tracking down witnesses, ruling out suspects, trying to persuade people to talk to him. There were times he missed being a PC -- at least he'd felt useful on the beat. 

He'd spoken to the DIs on the murder cases that Holmes had mentioned. There had been engraved lighters at both of the scenes, but the fingerprints hadn't matched anyone concerned with the victims. Even if Holmes was right, it wouldn't really get them anywhere.

Sometime around three, he decided he absolutely could not look at the phone again without replenishing his caffeine supply. Apparently Donovan had had the same thought: when he met her at the coffee maker, she looked as defeated as he felt. 

"Not getting anywhere either?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

"I think I've spoken to everyone Duggan's come in contact with since he was four. No one knows where he is. They just tell me to talk to someone else. Usually it's the last person I talked to!" 

Lestrade sympathized with her frustration. "Yep. Same."

"Nothing on this lighter thing, then?"

"Nothing we can use. Two other cases with worm lighters, so that might be something, except I can't find any shops that sell lighters with worms on them, and the list of places you can get that kind of engraving done is as long as my arm, twice over. Holmes's alibi checked out, by the way. So that's him crossed off, then."

Donovan's eyebrows shot up. "You can't be serious. At least on this one, I guess. If he's the type that hangs around murders, it's only a matter of time before he ends up committing one himself."

Lestrade shrugged. It wasn't that Donovan was wrong. Holmes had certainly been eager, probably the least hesitant witness he'd come across in a long time. And he wasn't even a witness. 

By the time his shift ended, Lestrade hadn't gotten any farther. No one could find Duggan, they wouldn't have much else to go on until Forensics came back with lab results. Lestrade flipped through his notes again, hoping that something would jump out at him.

Nothing except an address, one he'd circled three times. 4c, Montague House.

He wasn't sure what it was that drew him to the kid that lived there. Maybe something he recognized of himself from twenty years ago, maybe a delusion that he could save this one, make him better. 

With a guilty twinge, he flipped open his mobile.

"Heya, luv. Hate to do this, but I'm going to be late. Witness to interview, couldn't do it during the day." Well, it was mostly true, anyway.

Julia wasn't happy, but she accepted it easily enough.

Time to pay the Holmes kid a visit.

Going alone wasn't exactly by the book, but, then again, Lestrade reckoned that dealing with Sherlock was going to require an entirely different book altogether. Possibly also a different language.

**

The building was almost exactly what Lestrade had expected; it was something that looked like it would be more at home on the outskirts of some second-rate college. He hadn't thought anything could be worse than the block where his first flat had been. There was a hand-lettered sign proclaiming a room for rent next to some crumbling brickwork, a taped 'x' in one window, a windowbox with sad little pansies that clearly said, _We're making the best of it._ Lestrade anticipated mold and water damage creeping down the walls inside, imagined peeling wallpaper and chipping paint.

He put a thumb on the bell for flat 4c and pressed. Fifteen seconds passed, thirty. Lestrade tried again with the same result. 

After the third go, he tried the super's bell.

The response was much faster. 

The man was wearing a vest and track suit bottoms that had seen better days: sweat stains under the arms and down the sides, holes in one thigh and both knees. He was unshaven and reeked of cigar smoke with an underlying note of cheap lager. Rather matched his building, actually. 

"Yeah? What do you want?"

Lestrade showed him his warrant card. "DI Lestrade, Metropolitan Police. I'm here about one of your tenants?"

The super grunted. "Could be any o' this lot. Which one d'you want?"

"4c. Sherlock Holmes."

"Thank bloody Christ. Kid's been a pain in my arse ever since he moved in," he said as he let Lestrade into the building. "Noise at all hours, chemicals and shit all over the floor, all sorts coming to see him. Probably a dealer. Never late with the rent, though. Unlike some of these bastards. What'd he do?"

"He's a witness in an ongoing inquiry."

"Witness. Right," he scoffed.

By the time they'd reached the fourth floor, the man was wheezing. He seemed to relish banging on Holmes's door. "Oi!" he called, between hacking coughs. "Holmes! Police here for ya, finally. Open up!"

Silence. 

"Right then. If you see him, do you think you could tell him I'd like to speak to him? I'll give you my card," Lestrade said, reaching into an inner jacket pocket. 

"No, hold on. It's all right. I'll open the door for you."

He shook his head. "I haven't got a search warrant."

The super turned to Lestrade with a shrug. "Don't matter. Look, just 'cause he ain't opening up, it don't mean he in't at home. He does this, see?" 

Lestrade wasn't surprised to find the flat a complete mess: newspaper clippings with various things circled, arranged in haphazard piles, textbooks lying open on the floor, more cowering on dusty bookshelves. Lestrade skimmed the titles -- botany, chemistry, more chemistry, some with titles in Latin or Greek. He stepped over piles of paper, stacks of laboratory equipment. (How, exactly, had this guy gotten a hold of that powerful a microscope? Lestrade didn't want to know, and was pretty sure he _shouldn't_ know.)

There was a knife impaling some unopened post on a desk that looked like it might be mahogany, right next to a shadowbox filled with neat lines of dead moths. Two skulls: a human's (Lestrade prayed it wasn't real) perched on a cushion on the floor, and a bull's, mounted on the wall.

For some reason, the bull was wearing headphones.

And, sprawled on his back on a dilapidated futon with his feet hanging over the edge, was the man himself, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes closed, a cigarette in his mouth at an angle that made Lestrade wonder how the kid didn't have ash all over his face. Incongruously, he was wearing a silk dressing gown. 

"Oi! Holmes!" 

Before the super could say anything else, Lestrade turned to him and held up a hand. "Thanks, I've got it from here."

"Right. Good luck with the bugger. Lord knows you'll need it."

Lestrade watched the super leave over his shoulder, noticed that he didn't shut the door all the way. He went over and shut it himself. And then he crossed the room, stepping over piles of God-only-knew what to stand over Sherlock. 

The boy hadn't seemed to notice any of it. 

So Lestrade plucked the cigarette from his lips. That got an immediate reaction.

"I was smoking that!" he said as he sat up, his indignation ridiculous next to the silk of his dressing gown and the aging pajamas he wore under it.

"Really," Lestrade answered, unimpressed. "Fancy that."

Holmes squinted at him, as if only the realizing that they were both in his flat. "What are you doing here? Found your killer yet?" 

Taking his time, Lestrade stooped to put the cigarette out in the chipped mug that was apparently serving as an ashtray. He'd not noticed the violin under the futon before, but there it was. He wondered where the bow had gotten to and if it was just for show or if Holmes could actually play. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Came to talk to you, bright boy. Or wasn't that _obvious_?" 

Holmes sighed, and sat up. With a swirl of silk, he stood and crossed the room, stepping on what Lestrade assumed was a coffee table, heedless of the newspapers strewn across it. As he passed Lestrade, he nipped his fingers into Lestrade's pocket and snatched his packet of cigarettes. Lestrade only noticed the theft when the lighter clicked and Holmes sighed out an exhale. 

He glared until Holmes handed the packet and Lestrade's lighter back. 

"Thanks."

Lestrade took his things back with a glare and checked the rest of his pockets. "Warrant card."

Holmes rolled his eyes.

"Now!"

"Fine." He handed it back. "You came to talk. Why?"

Lestrade shook his head and crossed his arms for a moment before he realized that he'd unconsciously mirrored Holmes's posture. He let his arms drop to his sides. "You know? Forget it. You're clearly beyond help." He turned to go.

"You're bluffing."

Lestrade turned back, one eyebrow raised. "Am I?"

Holmes tilted his head to one side. "Yes. Obviously. I give you some credit, it probably wouldn't be obvious to any idiot off the street. But your nostrils flare when you're telling a lie. They did two days ago when you were about to protest me calling you unhappy."

"Your brother came to see me last night. Tried to warn me off you, but I don't really think he meant it."

"My brother?"

"Tall chap, expensive suit, umbrella? Breaks into people's flats and hijacks CCTV feeds?"

"Yes, yes," Holmes hissed, "I'm well aware of his particular proclivities. But why would he come to see you?"

"Because, sunshine, _you_ came and spoke to _me_. And, for some idiotic reason, I listened to you. Apparently it's not everyone who gives you the time of day, though I can't think why."

Holmes scowled. "Mycroft always did like to meddle."

"Said he was worried about you. Posh big brother, who's willing to break into a copper's flat to talk about your well-being, and you're living like this?"

Lestrade threw out an arm, gesturing to the newspapers on the floor and on the walls, the junk piled on every available surface. Sherlock followed the motion, looked around at the untidy, precarious heaps of things, then back at Lestrade.

"Like what?"

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose again, huffed out a laugh. "You really don't see it, do you? No, don't answer that."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, as if Lestrade was speaking in a language he didn't quite understand. 

"Look, kid. You've obviously got an eye for this business. I've got a number you can ring, help you get yourself together. I'll put in a good word for you."

"You're going to try to send me to some sort of drugs counseling." Sherlock huffed, then wrinkled his nose in a sneer. "It wouldn't work. Their methods are puerile, obvious. And I don't need help."

Lestrade raised his eyebrows. "You're shaking. You really think you don't need help?"

"Mycroft told you that I'm an addict."

"He didn't need to, sunshine. It's obvious to anyone who looks at you."

"No. If I can be said to be addicted, it's to the work. Can you not understand that? Without the work, without stimulation, my brain dies."

Same song the kid had sung at the crime scene the day before. Same song Holmes the older had sung. "Listen."

"No." Holmes threw up his hands, scrubbed them violently through his hair, and make an exasperated sound that was a cross between a growl and a screech. Then, suddenly, terrifyingly calm, he turned back to Lestrade. "Don't you ever get bored?"

Lestrade took in the flat again, noticed this time that the newspapers on the wall were arranged in some sort of order, after all. He'd tacked up old articles about murders the Met had judged unrelated, bits of string and pushpins connecting underlined sentences, circled entries in the agony columns cut out and pinned to the margins, arrows tracing invisible paths between this and that. The display included the latest _Guardian_ article about Persano's murder. It should have looked like the shed in that Russell Crowe film. It didn't. 

"Okay. Yeah, I get bored sometimes. But I don't --"

"Don't use drugs," Sherlock finished for him. "You do. Cigarettes in your pocket? And that's not counting the broken capillaries around your nose. Subtle, but telling. Whiskey man, are you? When it's not a 'piss-up' at the 'local.'" He rolled the words around as though they were some foreign food, then spat them out. 

Lestrade threw up his hands in disgust. "Fine. I came here to try and help you, but if all you're going to do is tell me to shut up, I'm off. And good luck finding another sap willing to try and save you from yourself."

"I don't need your help."

"You need someone's, Sherlock. You're too bright to be wasting yourself on agony columns and cocaine. I think you could make something of yourself, but not like this. God knows you'll never make it in the Met. You'd never last a day on the beat. I certainly can't use you while you're living like this."

Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but Lestrade held up a hand for silence while he searched for the words he wanted. Some of his anger drained away. 

"I think you're just a little lost, and you can't see it for yourself. But for some reason, you found me, so let's work together. If you won't take the counselor's number, take mine."

"I don't need a handout. I helped you because I was _there_ and I saw the pattern. It's right there. Look."

Lestrade looked. What he saw was a wall chart with months-old enlarged newspaper photos of old crime scenes, cigarette lighters circled in each. Next to each was a card, bulleted with facts about the victim. 'Carroll: non-smoker, no candles.' 'Jones: lighter in purse. Same color as wallet. Why silver lighter?' 

"How do you know all this?"

Sherlock threw up his hands. "I've _told_ you! Over and over again! I observe, I deduce." He spun around, his back to Lestrade. "I was doing you a favor."

"Think what you want, sunshine. I'll just leave this here." He wrenched the knife out of the desk, put his business card on top of the stack of unopened post, and rammed the knife back down. 

And then he left, slamming the door behind him.

**

A few days passed, with no word from Sherlock Holmes and very little progress on the case. All their leads had sputtered into nothing, including the strange cigarette lighter. 

He'd spent hours staring at photos of matching fingerprints that meant nothing without a name to go with them. 

Until Robert Tarrington made his mistake. 

The victim was Lisa Yarrow, and she had been a video blogger. 

When Tarrington had broken into her house, he hadn't realized that her webcam had been on. It had been a matter of hours before they'd found his face on CCTV and had made an arrest.

Lestrade had interrogated him, not that it had taken much interrogating. Tarrington had confessed, spewing a rant about journalists and how he was the worm who would eat through all their lies. It had turned Lestrade's stomach almost as much as listening to Lisa Yarrow die had.

He let himself celebrate with his team for about five minutes -- not that their 'celebration' was anything more than some smiles, a short break from work. He wouldn't be losing sleep tonight, and he was just as glad to get the bastard in the nick, but there'd be another one to catch tomorrow. Hell, his file of cold cases was threatening to outgrow his drawer. 

Still, one off the street was more than none.

He left Donovan and the rest to their deserved congratulatory coffees (from the shop down the street, not the normal shit), and excused himself. They didn't need an old jaded copper ruining it and saying 'told you so.' He'd get a jump on the paperwork, maybe be off home a little early.

It wasn't to be.

When he opened his office door, it was to see the Holmes kid (who looked like he'd had a wash and a trip to the shops) sitting in his chair, poring over a file.

"Oi! You, out of my chair. Out of my office, too, come to think of it. What do you want?"

"This wasn't a murder. Accidental death."

"Say what?"

Holmes sighed and tore his eyes away from whatever case he'd been looking at. "William Fitzroy. The answer's right in the stomach contents. Bad seafood. Obvious."

"Holmes."

"Sherlock, please," he said airily, waving a languid hand.

"Fine. Sherlock. You cannot on just sit at my desk and solve my cases."

"Why not? You're clearly incapable, so I may as well."

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he were somewhere else. "That's not the point."

"Then what is the point, Inspector? I was right about your serial killer. I'm right about Fitzroy. I am, in fact, always right. You've been stuck on this case for weeks with no leads, and I've come in and solved it for you. You need me, and the sooner you figure that out, the better off you'll be." He held Lestrade's gaze for a long moment, his steely eyes boring in to Lestrade's. Lestrade fancied he could feel them carving a way into his mind, his soul. 

Not for the first time, he questioned his sanity in trusting Holmes -- Sherlock, fine -- even a little bit. 

And then Sherlock looked away, his attention flicking back down to what Lestrade knew to be his cold case drawer. He went over, nudged the drawer shut with his foot, and stood over Sherlock. He figured he wouldn't get many chances to loom over the guy. 

"Now. How did you get in here?"

"Don't be stupid, it doesn't suit you."

"Okay. What do I do to get you to leave?"

"Do you really want me to?"

"Why me?"

He hadn't meant to say it aloud. 

Sherlock stared up at him for a long, quiet minute. There was a moment, just a moment, when his face softened and he very nearly looked vulnerable. He blinked, and his face hardened again.

"I've started a website."

"What?" Lestrade furrowed his brow, utterly baffled by the non sequitur.

"A website," Sherlock repeated slowly. "In the internet box," he added, patting Lestrade's computer monitor as if Lestrade were some sort of pensioner who still thought the telly was new-fangled.

"Really." Lestrade fought back against Sherlock's patronizing tone with as much sarcasm as he could cram into two syllables. 

"Yes."

A few keystrokes, and Lestrade was looking over Sherlock's shoulder at a page titled 'The Science of Deduction.'

"The hell's a consulting detective?"

"Does being made to think cause you physical pain, Lestrade? I'm a detective, I can be consulted. Hence: consulting detective. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. "

"You think people are going to hire you to deduce things for them."

"Most people are incapable of deducing anything for themselves, so, yes." A corner of his mouth lifted in a parody of a smile, as though Sherlock was copying a picture he'd seen once. "Do feel free to avail yourself."

With more grace than a person should rightfully have, Sherlock removed himself from behind Lestrade's desk and gathered his coat from the back of the chair. He put the threadbare black peacoat on with a swirl and made for the door, hands in his pockets. Before he left, he turned back to Lestrade, pulled something out of his pocket, and threw it onto Lestrade's desk.

It was a bag of white powder.

Sherlock nodded to it. "The remains of my 'stash.' I've decided to give it up, at least for a while."

Before Lestrade could answer, he was gone. 

Lestrade looked again at the open webpage. Sherlock had left it so that his mobile number and e-mail address were in the center of the window. 

With a heavy sigh, Lestrade sat down and wrote both down, tore the page out of his notebook, and put it in his top desk drawer.

And then he went through his notes on the Fitzroy case.

****

There's ash on the file's cover sheet: his second cigarette of the evening had long ago burned down to the filter. Probably around the same time Lestrade had stopped being able to see anything actually written in the report, and not just because the night had come silently crashing down around him.

As he wipes the ash away, it leaves a black smudge over his name.

He pulls a third out of the pack, doesn't light it. 

Instead, he taps it against the folder, twirls it between his fingers, drinks the rest of the scotch in one go.

And _then_ he lets himself slump forward, head hanging, hand scratching at the hair -- it's getting too long -- at the nape of his neck.

Elbows on knees, shoulders hunched and defensive, he taps the filter end of the cigarette against his forehead. The small action triggers a sense memory, and the wrench to his gut is enough to make him nauseous.

_"You can't kill an idea, can you? Not once it's made a home," the press of a cold finger precisely in the center of his brow, "there."_

Sherlock had been talking about Donovan at the time, but he might as well have been speaking of himself. Lestrade isn't sure, but he thinks he might just hate Sherlock a little bit for it.

He'd meant to remember how obnoxious Sherlock had always been, a pain in Lestrade's arse that had lingered for six years. How he'd constantly cut Lestrade down, and how Lestrade had let him. How he'd forced Lestrade's pride down his throat by being brighter and cleverer than Lestrade ever would be. 

Just as desperate, though.

The thought doesn't make the anger go away. 

Ten years ago, Lestrade might have thrown the mug (or, more likely, his fist) against a wall, but now, he can't summon the energy. 

He rubs at his forehead, too hard, trying to rub away the echo of Sherlock's touch.

Fidgeting with the unlit cigarette, he tries to distract himself with repetitive motion. Julia'd made him go to a hypnotist to quit the fags once. It hadn't worked, so he's not sure what's made him think he can hypnotize himself. There's a kink developing, just on the filter side of center, and he gives up, lights the thing before he breaks it. 

Inhale. The smoke in his lungs does nothing to fill the emptiness that's settled in his chest, does nothing to soothe the uncertainty and immensity of loss he feels.

The exhale is an angry huff, and it releases all the anger he's been keeping pent up in order to try and save face.

In a different neighborhood, in his first one in London maybe, or that shithole where Sherlock used to live, he'd shout into the night and think nothing of it, but he can't do that here. Get the police called on him, likely as not. Instead, he takes another drag and holds the smoke in until he doesn't feel like screaming. 

It had been the best part of six years trying to draw the right boundaries with Sherlock, trying to keep Sherlock at arm's length so the rest of his life stayed close and tidy, and he's ended up alone. A pariah at work, an ex-husband, with one friend too wrapped up in his own grief to let anyone else in, and one (if Sherlock had even been a friend) dead. 

He's never been very good at being alone.

He can almost see himself, a lonely old man smoking by himself on a fire escape, and the image isn't a nice one. 

It makes him want to do something desperate and outrageous and romantic. Maybe cut all ties with London: quit before he's fired, figure out how not to care that John's eyes had been completely blank at the funeral. Delete Sherlock's mobile from his phone, erase John's damned blog from his web history. Pretend there wasn't some sort of power vacuum left in Moriarty's wake and that he'd never had a sniper rifle aimed at his head.

Pretend he hadn't played a part in Sherlock's fall.

It was an attractive thought, being able to leave it all behind him.

He toys with the lighter still in his hand, flicks it on. For a moment he thinks about setting fire to the folder on the step beside him, letting all the file boxes burn, one by one. 

The lighter drops to the landing.

Slowly, as he watches the smoke curl in the air, his pathetic picture of himself fades and a new one drifts in, working its way into clarity from another, distant, curl of smoke.

A boy in an alley, desperate for attention and for someone to save him.

Not that the bastard ever would have admitted it. 

Sherlock always did have a tendency to leave right when Lestrade actually needed him. This time, he'd taken with him all the people Lestrade had been able to count on.

But Lestrade can't help but also remember him as a boy who'd made Lestrade trust him with nothing more than the fire in his eyes and the edge in his voice. Who'd intrigued Lestrade with his contradictions and his impossibility, like one of those puzzles made of twisted nails, bright and hard and complicated.

He hadn't wanted to remember that too, hadn't wanted to let himself be caught in Sherlock's whirlwind again.

He exhales again, and this time it comes out as a sigh.

Dealing with Sherlock always had felt a little bit like standing on the edge of a cliff (he flinches at the idea, tries not to remember blood matted into dark hair, the deformed shape of the skull). Now more than ever. 

The risks of trusting Sherlock had always seemed so abstract: he knew it had been against regulation, that it might cost him his job or his life, but it had worked. He wouldn't have called them a team, especially now he's seen Sherlock and John work together, but he couldn't deny that he'd felt better knowing they were out there, doing their own brand of vigilante justice. It got the job done, and, when it was all over, Lestrade can't bring himself to fault them for that.

He doesn't feel any better. 

He also doesn't feel like he can ever actually step away. He got himself caught up in Sherlock six years ago, and he'll stay caught up.

Stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette, he picks up the mug and the file folder and climbs back in through the window. 

He's not tired. Rather, he is, but it's the sort of bone-deep exhaustion that pushes out the ability to sleep. He locks up and tidies the kitchen anyway. If he doesn't at least pretend to go to bed, he'll drink himself out of Macallan, and he knows from experience that it won't make anything any better.

Eventually he sleeps. 

**

The sunshine on his face doesn't bring with it any sort of clarity, but, then, it hardly ever did. It takes three blinks and a swipe across his face before he's able to read the numbers on his alarm clock.

"Shit." 

He's overslept by an hour and a half. Instinct and muscle memory take over, and he's halfway out the door before he remembers that he won't be late to work, that he's not meant to be at work at all. 

Sloppily, he ties on a tie -- he's always tried to show up wearing one, but it rarely lasts more than twenty minutes, if it even survives the tube ride -- and shrugs off his coat. 

He's not good at knowing what to do with himself when he's not working. He never has been. 

So he toes off his shoes and wanders back to his bedroom to change. No sense in wearing a suit when he didn't have anywhere to be.

When he comes back to the kitchen, barefoot and in jeans and an old Arsenal jersey, he feels a strange sense of calm. He's got time for a decent cup of coffee and a proper breakfast. He can't remember the last time that'd been true.

It feels like a day off, but without any need to keep his mobile close.

For a while, he lets himself pretend that this _is_ his life -- no pressing engagements, no file boxes in the next room. He whistles along with the sizzle of eggs and bacon.

It even works, right up until he sees the mug from last night, the one he'd rinsed out and left in the sink.

That brings it all back, rips away the thin scab of make-believe he'd tried to stretch over his anger and betrayal and grief. 

He eats in silence, barely tasting anything, and mechanically does the washing up.

"Right," he says as he fetches socks and puts his trainers on.

Sherlock hadn't listened to him much when he'd been alive, and couldn't listen to him now, but damned if Lestrade wasn't going to talk to him anyway.

Maybe then he'd have some peace.

**

"Well, sunshine. Here we are."

He runs a palm over the smooth warm stone. He appreciates its starkness, no frills or pomp for the man who, in life, had cut so to the heart of things. It suited him. 

Lestrade sighs, draws his hand back, and drops to a crouch. Almost of their own volition, his fingers reach up to trace the name etched into the stone. 

"D'you remember that first case? The Tarrington murders?" Lestrade pauses, as if the stone will answer him. "Well. I've little doubt you kept the details that you thought might be relevant to something else later on. 

But that's not what I mean, Sherlock. You know what I remember? I remember a kid, thin and shaky and lost, who broke into my office and asked me to trust him. Of all the things you've ever asked of me, all the things that your damned brother warned me about…"

Lestrade bows his head for a moment.

"You used me, Sherlock. And I knew you were doing it, and I was all right with it, because it made you better. Maybe I shouldn't have been. Probably I shouldn't have been."

Lestrade sits back on his haunches, and lets out a long sigh. He stares at the unyielding, ungiving black stone, as unyielding as Sherlock himself had been at his most difficult. 

"John asked me, that first case he ever worked with you, he asked me why I put up with your nonsense. 

Know what I said? Said you were a great man, and that maybe you'd even be a good one. You became a good one, Sherlock. I can't believe in everything, but I believed that. Believed it six years ago in that damned alley, believed it even when that little girl screamed at you."

Another long silence.

And then Lestrade _knew_.

Everything had changed, and nothing had.

"God help me. I believe it now, too. Dammit, Sherlock. I'm sorry."

He hadn't thought it would be so easy to say.

He stands up, but he isn't quite ready to turn his back on the headstone.

Nothing he'd said had been what he thought he was going to say. He'd come here wanting to think that proving himself didn't have the same urgency that it did a day -- a week -- before. He'd wanted not to care what the Yard thought of him. 

But he does. 

If last night had showed him anything, it was that validating his professional relationship with Sherlock Holmes would mean untangling whatever personal relationship they'd had, too. And that was going to be far more difficult.

There are things left unexplained, yes. Maybe too many, but Lestrade's going to look into them. 

He's going to need help.

Still facing Sherlock's grave, he takes out his mobile and keys through to a familiar number. It goes straight to voicemail, exactly as Lestrade expected.

"John. I'm coming over, and I'm not leaving until you and I have a chat."

**

There's a shrine growing along Baker Street: flowers and cards, candles and the occasional teddy bear wearing a deerstalker. The gifts line the edges of 221's stoop and extend down the pavement. Lestrade's a bit moved by the whole thing. He nods at a young woman as she lays down a single lily. She's vaguely familiar, but Lestrade only places her when she turns to leave and he sees the jade pin in her hair.

He knocks at the door, hears a faint, "Just a minute, dear!" from inside.

"Hello, Mrs. Hudson," he says when she opens the door.

Her eyes go wide for a moment, but finally she smiles. "Hello, dear." She looks him up and down, from the well-loved shirt to the grass stains on his knees. "Nice to see you out of your suit."

"I'm suspended," he blurts, "so I'm not here as a… I'm just here to see John."

"Ah," she replies, nodding slowly. "You'd better come in."

They talk about inconsequential things while she sets about making tea. It feels vaguely unreal to Lestrade to be talking about the weather when there's a great big elephant in the rooms right above their heads.

But then she fills the teapot and sits across from him at her little kitchen table. Her face is suddenly grave.

"I thought you might have known, Inspector. He's moved out. He said he couldn't be here anymore, with all the…" she trails off and waves a hand a the ceiling. "Well, you know."

Lestrade nods and stares down into his tea. He does know, and yet he can't imagine the immensity of what all of this has done to John. They've never talked about it outright, of course, but Lestrade doesn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to have seen how the past eighteen months had changed John and Sherlock both.

When he looks back up at Mrs. Hudson, she's dabbing at her eyes. "Sorry, sorry, dear. It's just so… Grief will do that, I know, but it feels like I've lost them both."

Lestrade reaches across the table and takes her hand, gives it a squeeze. With her other hand, she reaches over and pats his, then gives him a watery smile as he lets go.

"Me too, Mrs. Hudson."

Lestrade will always be grateful that she doesn't say what he's thinking: that it's different for her. Worse, because she hadn't played any part in Moriarty's plan.

Angry as he still is at Sherlock, he's angry at himself, too.

"It's just so quiet up there, and heaven knows where I'll get new tenants. I told John he could stay, of course, that I could reduce the rent a bit, and he's found a job at a clinic, but he just wasn't having it. So I'll have to rent it, and the things Sherlock did to the floors… scratches and who knows what else. And the walls!"

"He was…" Lestrade shook his head. "Anyway, I'd like to help John, if I can. I don't suppose he left an address?"

"Do you know, I think he did. Let me see if I can find it for you."

There's an awkward silence until she comes back with a small card with an address written in John's neat, square handwriting. 

"Thanks, Mrs. Hudson. Keep yourself well, and if there's anything I can ever do…"

"I will, dear. Inspector?" she calls after him.

He turns back. "Just Lestrade now. Or Greg, even."

"Of course, dear," she says, though it doesn't sound like she believes him. "It's good of you to see him through."

He doesn't have an answer for that, so he just nods and sees himself out. 

Forty-five minutes later, he's pounding on the door to a shabby little bedsit in a shabby little block of flats. When there's no answer, he assumes John's at work.

He's determined to talk to John that day, though, and isn't about to trek all the way home.

There's a little pub across the street from John's building, so he goes over and orders a sandwich and a pint and sits near a window. 

He's nursing his fourth when he sees a familiar blond head across the street. He settles his bill and follows. 

This time, when he knocks on the door, he gets an answer. 

It's a sharp intake of breath and a move to shut the door in his face, but Lestrade'll take it. It's better than nothing. 

He gets his foot in before John can slam the door. "John."

"I don't have anything to say to you," John grinds out. His jaw is set, his eyes hard, and Lestrade can see the soldier he was. Still is.

"That's fine. Will you at least listen?" 

Fifteen seconds pass, thirty, as they stare at each other. 

Lestrade sees that John's about to force him out, so he takes a desperate leap. "I believe in Sherlock Holmes," he says quietly.

John smiles a cruel, skeptical smile and looks away. "Right."

"Let me prove it. John. Kick me out after if you want, but at least let me try. Please."

John looks back, and it's as though he's seeing Lestrade for the first time. He swings the door open and silently ushers Lestrade in. 

The flat is exactly what Lestrade would have expected. It looks like a hotel room, sparse and impersonal, but then, Lestrade's gotten used to seeing John make a space for himself within Sherlock's mounds of stuff. He had fit there, without fading into the background of it. Seeing him without it was like only seeing half of a picture. 

John gestures to a generic-looking chair, takes the one at the little desk in the corner for himself. He sits on the edge of it, ramrod straight with his arms crossed, staring at Lestrade as though daring him to speak.

"Have you ever watched a terrible film?" Lestrade asks, watching John carefully.

"What the fuck?"

"Hear me out. Have you ever watched a terrible film to the end, just because you needed to see it through?"

"Where is this going?"

"I can't just turn a film off. No matter how bad it is. I have to see how it ends. Always have done."

"Lestrade. I've had a long day, and I don't really have time for this." John glares at him, fire where Sherlock had always been ice.

"I've been suspended. Even if they don't sack me, the brass has made it damn clear that they don't want me back. That was my _life_ , John. Same as Sherlock, Sherlock's cases, were yours."

"Oh, for God's... we weren't--"

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. Sit there and deny that Sherlock Holmes changed your life. For the better."

John's eyes close, just briefly. 

"You can't. I know you can't."

"What's your point, Lestrade?"

"I can't either. Look, I know it's different. I know it wasn't like you and him, and never could have been, but I hated my job when I met him. Only job I'd ever wanted, and I was tired of it. He…," Lestrade looks down at his hands for a moment. "First week I met him, he caught us a serial killer we didn't know existed 'til he showed us. I never told him -- hell, he probably figured it out anyway -- but he made me remember."

The muscles in John's jaw tighten; Lestrade could swear that he could actually see John swallow whatever emotions were swirling around in his head. "Remember?"

"Why we do this. Why we fight."

John tilts his chin up just a little, his gaze fierce. More fierce. "And yet you could just arrest him. Like it meant nothing."

It hadn't been nothing, but that's not something John would be able to hear. "I know. Believe me, I know." 

A pause, long and brittle. Lestrade picks his words carefully, knowing that the wrong move would break the moment and whatever remained of their friendship. 

"Look, I get why you wouldn't trust me, believe me, I do, but you need to know that I trust Sherlock. Always have done, despite all the... despite him."

John barks out a mirthless laugh. "Yeah."

"Whether you believe me or not, my point is this. I don't think he's -- he _was_ \-- a fraud. God, I never wanted to think it, either. And I've got a set of file boxes in my sitting room that can help me prove it. I could use another set of eyes."

"No. You'll not suck me into this. I should -- I need to move on. I've got a job now, a good job, and I can't afford to lose it. I can't."

"And whatever criminal empire Moriarty built himself? Going to let that move on, too?"

John flinches at the name and looks away.

"Yeah. I didn't think so."

"It's not my job, Lestrade. I can't do it without… I can't do it." John looks back at him, and his eyes have lost some of their steel. 

"Yeah. All right. Thought I'd ask anyway." 

There's a long silence. Lestrade watches John withdraw into himself, but refuses to let himself feel like he's intruding. 

So he fills in the quiet. "I'm thinking about opening a pub."

John frowns at him. "What?"

"In case I'm sacked. Been thinking about it for awhile -- could be fun."

"You wouldn't."

"Dunno. I think I'd make a good barman."

John scoffs. "You come here and lecture me about trust and why you stay a copper, and now you want to open a sodding pub? Christ, Lestrade."

"I'll need something to do. Justice through better bitter. I think it could work."

The bad joke makes a corner of John's mouth twitch, as though a smile is trying to force its way through. It feels like a truce.

"You think they'll do it, then? Sack you?"

Lestrade shrugs. "It's a possibility."

"You're not going to let them sack you without a fight, are you?"

"File boxes," he reminds John. "I've got copies of every case Sherlock was ever part of, and quite a bit of time on my hands. If I find anything that's out of line, I'll resign."

Eventually, they end up at the pub across the street. The woman behind the bar gives Lestrade a pointed look, but he ignores her. 

He even manages to convince John to let him buy the first round. Their friendship's not mended by any stretch, but it's a bit less raw.

Later, much later, Lestrade's back out on the fire escape with a fag and a different case file. 

(It's a triple homicide from 2006, and Lestrade can clearly remember the moment, two weeks after his team pulled the case, that he opened his top desk drawer to find Sherlock's number. 

It had been the first time he'd used it.

When Sherlock had shown up in his office, he'd been clear-eyed and looked almost like he'd had a few decent meals down him. The case had been solved in a day.)

Lestrade had realized, sometime around the third round with John, that, as much as he thinks he can see the writing on the wall at the Yard, he's not about to let them make him out to be a fool for letting Sherlock in.

For letting Sherlock make his mark on them all.

They didn't have the right.


End file.
